I Tried To Love You
by this is not a pipe
Summary: Christine tried to love Erik, but there is such an incredibly thin line between love and hate...Companion to She Cannot Love Me, but can stand alone. Dark Fic


**Disclaimer: I don't own Phantom, it owns me.**

I've always wondered what it feels like to be free – it must be something like being an angel. I hardly dare imagine the wonders that wings might bring me. I would soar with the stars and sing praise for all things good. I would fly with the wind and forget hate. The golden gates of heaven would open to me when I pleased, and I would enter, dressed in a white so pure that the human eye could hardly lay its gaze upon it.

Instead, I am condemned to a dark forever in a cage of hate – like a red fire, like blood, like the blackest rose. The feeling of loathing would echo through clouds of sin, as I enter into the kingdome of fear and wrongdoing.

Oh Erik, you will never live to see me spread the wings of the angel that you thought I was. You have turned me to hate with the melody from your violin, and for that you will never be forgiven. Once, in the hazy past of my innocence, I would have prayed for your happiness. I would have begged for some compensation for all the hardships you have endured in the miserable excuse of what you call a life. Now I wish you'd burn – burn until the skin on your god awful bones melted into molten hate.

My love for you will soar with your screams of anguish, and I will laugh. You have taken the innocence of my mind, and my head swarms with forbidden images that will never be.

You love me, you pathetic fool. You want me like you've never wanted anything else. I am your music, your light. Well, I damn you to darkness, for you have taken any hope from my life. You have driven me to insanity and I will never again be the Christine you used to know. Never again will childish Christine Daae be the same.

You hate yourself Erik, remember? You hate yourself as though you were born of Hell's fire. What will you do, _dearest _Erik, if your precious Christine turned to sin? What will you do if her voice turned shrill with fire and rage, when her eyes turn to the color of hate?

The devil is stronger than all men and women together, Erik. It is sin itself, and you have allowed it to possess me. You say I am dead now. You say that I have perished under your obsessive gaze. Well, that might be true – half of me has ceased to exist. But the other part of me…Oh Erik, I've never felt more alive!

It is too late now to save me. My poor Raoul – he pursued a saint, and now he shall marry a temptress.

My blood has frozen in my vein and turned my heart to ice. It used to beat for compassion, and now it will allow me to watch you choke. You foolish angel – you are dying for love of me. I watch you sway and groan, I watch as the life is slowly sucked from your body.

And I feel no pain, Erik. I feel no emotion. No kiss, no touch, no lover's caress can bring me back now. It's a tingling that surges through my vein, dearest, and I'm sure you've felt it before. It's a sadistic need to inflict pain upon those who have pained me.

Not many people have given me true reason to hate. You should be honored that you are my sole exception.

You'll never know how I laugh at you, Erik, you who are a poor dog ready to die for me. _Really _Erik! Did you honestly think that by smearing your spit on the hem of my gowns you'd convince me to spend my wretched forever in the dreary, tattered hole you call home? It's not exactly the ideal fairy tales little girls dream of, is it now?

No, I much prefer a safe haven in the arms of a knight with a clean white horse, no matter how childish this knight might be. I was born to a poor violinist; I was raised in a theater where all that is expected of me is to live a life of poverty. I don't want breath-taking romance and a love so strong it burns. I'm sick of burning – the fire that comes with passion has too much sin, too much hell. And I'm sick of hell, I'm tired of always standing on the edge.

You don't get it, do you? With you, _dearest _Erik – oh, how I mock the words – it is always going to be standing on the edge. Nothing is safe, nothing is quiet, and nothing is calm. There is always the stench of death on the horizon, whether it be you or me or someone with whom you don't get along.

You are dizzy, you are weak, your world is spinning. You think that the miserable tears rolling down your cheeks are unnoticed. You stagger and sway and teeter, you are desperate, and I know you cannot take it anymore. You want to fall to your knees and beg for me to love you.

You'll never notice how I stand above you, laughing at your yielding knees and your heavy breathing. You look deep into my eyes and try to find remnants of the naïve girl with the voice of angels, but my voice is hoarse with corruption now. You'll never find that Christine again, Erik, so spare yourself the heartache.

For a moment, I allow myself to look around me at the world that has so changed in my eyes. It used to be a little house on the lake where mysteries were made and forbidden loves took shelter. If I squint, I can see the music, feel it flowing through me. It's like a small stream growing stronger, fed by the rain – so unlike the gushing of the waterfalls that I felt mere seconds before. For a moment, all is calm, and I can almost forget the man that ruined me as the tenor of angels fills the air. It only takes your wretched, pitiful sob to echo through the darkened walls for the rush of acid to flow through my veins, and within seconds I am madness once more.

You want something to hold on to, Erik? Hold on to my pain, for it is strong enough to feel now. It is a pain made of hatred and insanity and most of all sin. Can't you feel it, Erik? Can't you sense it and see it choking the life out of you? Can't you realize that you hurt me?

Can't you understand? Can't you wrap your head around it? I tried to love you! I gave my heart and soul to a broken man and it drove me to insanity! I hate you, you stupid, miserable man! I hate you I hate you I hate you _I hate you!_

Can't you see that I'm just as weak as you? Can't you see that I'm falling into something that I can't understand? There's nothing for me to hold on to, nothing to keep me grounded anymore. Because loving you is loving something that will never bring me warmth or light. Loving you is like loving hate, and darkness, and tears. Loving you is begging for betrayal and heartache and death. It's like inviting madness into your arms and holding it until you rely on each other. And I can't do it. I'm not strong enough, I don't want it enough.

Now we are both broken, and now we're both breathless and clutching at air. We're both weeping on the floor, we're both begging for a love that is too strong for us. It has driven us insane, and we still want it. It's an addiction, but at least we're addicted together.

I think I could have loved you, but there's too much corruption to make it now. I'm not sorry for your wretchedness because you brought me down with you, and that cannot be forgiven. We'll both soon be dead anyways.

I can't give you what you want, Erik. Accept that, and go on your way. It doesn't matter if you sing to me, it doesn't matter if you cry and beg. Threatening and yelling won't work either, because my insanity has given me a shield. You can scream, Erik, and you can hope, desire, wish, ask, take, die, _love_ –

– But I cannot love you.

**A/N: Flame me, love me. Reviews are welcome. **


End file.
